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Sunday, June 3, 2012

Acquittal refute

In
any situation where foreign aid is disbursed there is normally a reporting
system in place and criteria for receiving funds. There is also a system for
releasing funding on the part of the donor where one tranche is released after
the previous one has been acquitted for.

Four members of parliament have fail to acquitted their 2011 republic
of China, Taiwan constituency development funds and amongst them is the
Opposition leader Dr. Derek Sikua. Dr.Sikua has refuted the claim by the Prime Minister`s
office and ministry of rural development that he has not submitted the acquittals
for the republic of China-funded rural development funds for his constituency for
2011.

In
his defense and in response to the allegations against him, Dr. Derek Sikua mentioned
that he received the first and third tranches but the second tranche came in
late and thus, the late acquittal.

The
system was initially set up to disburse funds from the responsible ministry to
the honorable members of parliament and their constituencies. This implies that
in this case, the ministry of rural development is responsible for the proper
and timely distribution of funds and therefore if for any reason the funds are
dispersed late, ample time should be accorded for acquittals and reporting. If
normal procedures had been followed, the third tranche of funding for Dr.
Sikua’s constituency would not have been disbursed before receipt and
acquittals of the second tranche.

To
be really clear on the issues, the question of why the second tranche was
released after the third tranche and the question of who approved disbursal of
the third tranche before the second one and why they did this needs to be answered.

The
office of the prime minister and the ministry of development has given the MPs
seven days to produce their acquittals before the auditors are sent to their
constituencies to establish how the fund were spent.

For
the government to mandate Dr.Sikua to produce the report and acquittal within seven days is not proper as the stage of distribution of funds for this
constituency is not known and if half or more of the funding is yet to be
dispersed, such a mandate will trigger falsified acquittals just to answer to
the donor.

Another
question that needs to be asked is why aid funding is channeled into the
community through the honorable member of a constituency rather than through
the ministry responsible itself and through its provincial networks.
Distribution of aid funding through the honorable member responsible for a
constituency is in itself a venue that encourages corruption. One of Dr.
Sikua’s points in his defense was that one contributing factor to the delay in
receipt disbursal and acquittal of the Micro projects development and
millennium goals was the fact that he was “engaged with is election petition
case which started in March 2011. The chairpersons of his polling stations also
had to approve the constituency’s 2011 budget in July last year before the
funds could be received. Clearly, the interference of political activities,
obligations and protocols has hindered the process of disbursal of funds and
acquittals for his constituency, which emphasizes the idea that there needs to
be a more transparent system of distributing aid fundingthat involves minimum or no political
interference.

The
statement released by the Ministry of Rural development saying that other
provinces have already acquitted and these have already been delivered to the
Embassy of the Republic of China is questionable as the reporting would need to
be compiled as a tranche report and acquittal by the Ministry itself and then
presented to the embassy and this cannot be submitted unless all constituencies
have given in their acquittals which again raises the question of whether or
not there is a transparent system in place for the distribution of funding and
whether this issue is being used against Dr. Sikua as a political retaliation.

Perhaps
the more important question to ask is, “Is the current system being used as a
political campaign tool to subsidize the constituency allocations (which are
not always sufficient for rural development once all political favors have been
paid for) and is the government turning a blind eye on the issue of
transparency of the distribution system to cater for other discrepancies?

1 comment:

These sorts of issues are always in the media. Ministers, provincial leaders and other government officials usually make the news. It is sad that the people who are supposed to serve us resort to dirty games. I think if it was not for the media these groups of people would continue to misuse funds. Corruption ills every society and I think that is where the media plays the vital role of getting the truth out and maintaining the balance in society. The above members of parliament should be held accountable and be held to acquit every single cent. Perhaps the only pressure they are receiving is from the media and I think they should not let it go easy. Of course by balanced and fair reporting.